The more things change

Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former church official awaiting trial for allegedly protecting sexually abusive priests, drew words of encouragement from Philadelphia’s new archbishop and a standing ovation from scores of priests at a private gathering last month, according to people familiar with the event.

During the invitation-only dinner for Archbishop Charles J. Chaput at a parish hall in Montgomery County, Chaput singled out Lynn in the crowd and noted how difficult the ordeal has been for him, according to one priest who attended and two people briefed by others at the gala.

Much of the audience, which included hundreds of priests, then stood and applauded, said the sources, who asked not to be identified.

The Grand Jury also recommended charging Monsignor William J. Lynn, the Secretary for Clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia under Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

From 1992 until 2004, Msgr. Lynn was responsible for investigating reports that priests had sexually abused children and for recommending appropriate action to ensure that priests could not reoffend. The Grand Jury found that Msgr. Lynn endangered children, including the victims in these most recent cases, by knowingly allowing dangerous priests to continue in ministry.

Just so you’re clear about precisely what the Grand Jury found, check out the full report; the Lynn material starts on page 43:

It was Msgr. Lynn’s job to investigate any allegations of sexual abuse by priests, and to review the Archdiocese’s secret archive files, where complaints were recorded. He was in a position to make sure that no priest with a history of sexual abuse of minors was recommended for assignments, much less for assignments with continued access to children.

Yet, time after time, Msgr. Lynn abdicated this responsibility. He did so, moreover, not through negligence or simple incompetence, but purposefully. He did so, with Cardinal Bevilacqua’s knowledge and at the Cardinal’s direction, as part of a knowing practice – continued over decades – of placing sexual predators in positions where they would have easy access to trusting minors, just as long as the Archdiocese was spared public exposure or costly lawsuits.

Msgr. Lynn did more than passively allow the molesters to remain in positions where they could continue to prey on children. When victims complained or scandal threatened, he recommended to the Cardinal that the abusers be transferred to new parishes, where the unsuspecting faithful would not know to be wary and vigilant, and where the abusive clergymen could go on exploiting their positions of trust and authority to pursue their criminal depravity. In this way, Msgr. Lynn effectively shielded the predator priests from accountability and ensured them a continuing supply of victims.

The Secretary for Clergy could at any time have referred serious allegations to law enforcement officials, who could have conducted proper investigations. That is certainly what any of us, the Grand Jurors, would have done in Msgr. Lynn’s position. Protecting children was his duty. It just was not his priority.

Based on the evidence before us, it is clear that the Secretary for Clergy was acutely interested in shielding abusive clergy from criminal detection, in shielding the Cardinal from scandal, and in shielding the Archdiocese from financial liability. He showed no interest at all in defending the Archdiocese’s children. On the contrary, he consistently endangered them.

I know, I know, innocent until proven guilty, and all that. But you don’t have to judge Msgr Lynn guilty to refrain from publicly expressing sympathy with him at a public meeting, given the gravity of his alleged crimes, and how badly all this has damaged the trust and morale of Philly’s Catholics. (By the way, has Chaput expressed similar concern with how hard life is for victims of abusive Philadelphia clergy?) It would have been perfectly fine for the new archbishop to have been silent. It may be helpful to Philadelphia’s lay Catholics to have this signal about where their new archbishop’s sympathies lay. It’s interesting to think about this in tandem with what Chaput asked me nine years ago when I told him I didn’t trust the bishops to fix the sex abuse crisis: “If you don’t trust the bishops, why are you still Catholic?”

Abp Chaput ought to presume Lynn innocent until proven guilty, as we all ought to. But to single Lynn out for a public expression of sympathy as Chaput did, given the gravity of the criminal charges against Lynn, for his role in allegedly facilitating the sexual abuse of Catholic children, is at best inappropriate. At best. It may come as news to Chaput, but he is not only the priest of priests, but the priest of every Catholic in this archdiocese.

It’s interesting to think about this in tandem with what Chaput asked me nine years ago when I told him I didn’t trust the bishops to fix the sex abuse crisis: “If you don’t trust the bishops, why are you still Catholic?”

I find it this whole sexual abuse obsession a bit odd. But I find Chaput’s alleged question odder. So odd that I must question the veracity of your quote and would like to have heard it in context.

In truth; one is a Catholic (or not) based upon if he believes the Church is true, not if he has trust in the bishop’s administrative skills or their morals. Hell, humans are sinners. And I strongly doubt a guy as smart as Chaput believes something so stupid that one is a Catholic based upon his trust of bishops.

Btw, one doesn’t need to know about any sex abuse scandal to know how screwed up the typical AmChurch bishop’s thought patterns are. Just listen to a sermon or two and compare and contrast to some of the writings of the Saints. And this theology is more American Liberal than Catholic. It’s all about mercy and faux love, not about all the virtues together. Justice certainly gets left behind.

I would just like to emphasize that the gathering was a private affair and that whoever brought Archbishop’s comments to the media/public was out of line. Archbishop was expressing his support of his priests and all I have read about is what Msgr. Lynn is accused of, nothing about what he says or any mitigating circumstances. Again, I am not saying he is innocent, but we do not know the whole story.

Archbishop was expressing his support of his priests and all I have read about is what Msgr. Lynn is accused of, nothing about what he says or any mitigating circumstances.

Read the grand jury report, Tanya. There is also a great deal of coverage in the Philadelphia Inquirer. It is up to the courts to determine criminal guilt or innocence, but it untenable to claim that we are in the dark about circumstances surrounding Lynn’s decision-making here. From the report:

These are sordid, shocking acts. There was at least one person, though, who could not have been the least bit surprised by what happened to Billy and Mark. Monsignor William Lynn was the Secretary for Clergy under Cardinal Bevilacqua. In
that position, he acted as the personnel director for priests. It was his job to review all reports of abuse, to recommend action, and to monitor the abuser’s future conduct. Before Billy was raped – four years before – Monsignor Lynn learned that one of Billy’s assailants had previously “wrestled,” “tickled,” and groped another boy during an “overnight.” The priest in question was Father Edward Avery. Avery took the boy to his bed on at least two other occasions and again fondled his genitals. After the abuse was reported, Avery was secretly sent to a sexual offender program run by the Archdiocese.

While he was there, Monsignor Lynn told parishioners to disregard any untoward reports concerning Avery’s absence as mere “rumors,” and reassured them that Lynn knew of
nothing but compliments about their pastor.

Avery was discharged from the sex offender program on condition that he have no further contact with adolescents. An “aftercare” team was supposedly set up to watch him. Monsignor Lynn, however, did not send Father Avery far away from boys. Quite the opposite: he recommended an assignment at a parish with a school.

Cardinal Bevilacqua then assigned Avery to St. Jerome – the school where Avery later found, and raped, Billy. The “aftercare” team was a farce: Monsignor Lynn was repeatedly advised that the team wasn’t meeting. He didn’t do anything about it. In fact, he never even told St. Jerome School that he had just sent them a child abuser.

Nor were St. Jerome students the only children at risk from Father Avery. During this period, the Archdiocese actually allowed Avery to “adopt” six young Hmong children. Monsignor Lynn knew about the Hmong “adoption”; he also knew that Avery’s sex offense program had specifically prohibited such conduct. He never did a thing to stop it.

Indeed the Archdiocese did not get around to removing Avery from ministry until 2003, just three months after the release of the prior grand jury report – but eleven years after the first documented abuse reports, and seven years after the rape of Billy. Does anyone really believe there were no others?

As with Father Avery, so it is with Father Brennan, the priest who raped Mark: Monsignor Lynn acted as if his job was to protect the abuser, never the abused.

That’s a fair question, Morris. I couldn’t in good conscience return to Roman Catholic Christianity because even though I affirm as true far more of what Catholicism teaches than do many American Catholics, I can’t truthfully say that I believe in Catholicism’s claims for authority.

But I care very much about what happens to the Catholic Church, not only because I have many friends there and am grateful for what Catholicism gave me, but also because I honestly believe that the future of the West depends on the health of the Roman church. It’s slow-motion suicide at the hands of its leadership class affects all of us, especially Rome’s fellow travelers in other Christian churches.

This whole innocent-until-proven-guilty concept degenerates into silliness rather quickly. It’s for court-of-law, and I’m very thankful for our court system. However, it is not what we should be basing our prudential judgment upon.

If the guy down the street, who has always been a bit weird anyway, is credibly accused of molesting several neighborhood kids, you can guarantee I won’t be dropping my kids over at his house for his wife to babysit. He may be innocent-until-proben-guilty in a court of law, but using that as my defense should my children be molested by him because I chose to treat him as innocent until the jury verdict came in will result in me being rightfully subject to public ridicule, derision, and contempt. I wouldn’t be surprised if child services didn’t get involved.

One would hope Archbishop Chaput has read the indictment (of course, given what we have learned about Finn recently, it wouldn’t exactly come as a huge surprise if Chaput has chosen to stick his fingers in his ears, shut his eyes, and go “lalalalala” rather than informing himself of just how egregious and criminal Lynn’s cover-up and shuffling of these predators really was). Anybody who has read the indictment knows that there is good reason to at least consider the notion that Lynn is not an innocent victim in this mess. It was most imprudent of Chaput to single Lynn out and commiserate with his suffering, “private” party or not. Just because an Archbishop does something or says something outrageous in a “private” gathering doesn’t make it any less outrageous and offensive. Besides, he had to know news of it would probably get out.

I am rather glad Chaput did this, though (except for the fact it heaps more suffering on the families who have truly suffered for years due to Flynn’s cover-ups), because it reveals true character. I am not surprised by Rod’s description of his meeting with Chaput as I have an acquaintance who shared with me that when she met with Chaput to share the story of how her family has suffered due to their involvement with the Legion of Christ, he was cold and callous to the point that she described her behavior as being that of a “jerk”. I take such things with a grain of salt, because people’s personal experiences are just that and can be greatly affected by their own issues, but when story after story about Chaput reveals him as arrogant and callous, there is reason to question the character of the man.

I never met with Chaput personally, Ginger. He and I had a series of e-mail exchanges back in 2002, over my coverage in National Review of the scandal. When the archbishop put that question to me, I could hardly believe it either. I told him that my Catholic faith didn’t stand or fall on the competence of bishops, but on whether or not I believed that what the Catholic faith taught was true.

I showed that e-mail to a couple of friends of mine who are Catholic and prominent journalists, just to get their view and to make sure that I wasn’t misreading his words. They agreed with me that it was shocking, and made no theological sense.

In an odd way, Rod, you and I agree that the future of the West depends on the health of the Roman Church only in somewhat opposite directions in that I think the only way the West can survive is if the Roman Church is contained the way we contained Communism.

I’m not at all surprised that Chaput would come out with this sort of thing. It is typical of the Catholic Hierarchy and to be expected of them. But why any Catholic parent would darken the door of a church after this is beyond me.

Anyone who either joined or left the Church because of what a bishop or bishops did or did not do has not read one iota of Church history–and that includes the history of the Eastern as well as the Latin Churches.

There’s more than a little whiff of Donatism to Rod’s writing, and if he continues to hold on to his position, at some point he’s going to get his heart broken by the Orthodox Church, too. Then where will he go?

I was baptized Greek Catholic in 1996, at the age of forty. I’m an historian, and became a convinced Christian despite, not because, of what the people who lead or comprise the Church have done. As Napoleon’s uncle, Cardinal Fesch, responded when the Emperor threatened to destroy the Church, “Sire, we bishops have been trying to do so for eighteen hundred years”.

If Rod wants a more patristic reference, St. John Chrysostom directed his golden tongue more than once against the moral and pastoral shortcomings of his contemporaries in the episcopate.

Grow up! The Church is not about its priests, or its bishops, or its laity, all of whom are highly imperfect sinners. The Church is about the incarnation, death and resurrection of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, who by death has trampled death and granted life to those in the tomb. If you believe this, then the misbehavior of the hierarchy should have no effect on your faith.

Stuart, you watch your mouth in here. I am willing to have you dispute me, but not insult me on my own blog. I suppose you don’t read my blog, because I have explained at great length why I left the Catholic Church, and it was not over the fact that I lost faith in the bishops. It was because I ceased to believe in what the Catholic Church teaches. I don’t have much faith in the competence of bishops of the Orthodox Church either. I am perfectly well aware of theological truth in this matter, and am not a Donatist.

Besides which, if you had read closely before you posted, you would have observed that it was not I who claimed that my Catholic faith stood or fell based on my belief in the integrity and competence of bishops.

I find this incredibly disappointing. Archbishop Chaput is a conservative, and I’m (in general) not, nor am I even a Roman Catholic, so obviously I disagree with him on many things. That said, he’s always struck me as an exceptionally smart, thoughtful, reasonable, and compelling thinker, with great intellectual gifts and with charity towards his opponents. And he’s one conservative that I genuinely admire.

Readers, I’ve not approved several comments, because I’m concerned they would derail the thread entirely. Please don’t use this thread as an occasion for a general attack on the Catholic Church, and please don’t use this as an occasion to yell that anybody who finds fault with Chaput’s actions here is obviously someone who hates the Catholic Church.

This, sadly, just confirms my own intuition about this particular churchman. We could all be getting him wrong, of course, and if so, God forgive me, but my intuition is based as much on his recent writings as rumors about callous remarks made in private. The real culprit IMHO is the bubble of privilege so many in our so-called “classless” society, not just Catholic bishops, inhabit. They sincerely can’t imagine what “over-emotional” types, including “victims,” think and feel.

To partly explain what I meant above, I found this from Kevin Briggs of the National Catholic Reporter re Chaput’s general point of view, pertinent. This isn’t about any particular issue, just an attitude. Expressing concern for priests first seems to fit the pattern.:

<<The same proclivity to proclaim the whole truth without a shred of doubt also came into play in his fiat that children of gay or lesbian couples wouldn't be allowed in Denver's Catholic schools, a move widely seen as a rebuke to Boston's archbishop who allowed such children to enroll.

A similar pattern pertains to Chaput's handling of sexual abuse cases. He has expressed sorrow for the victims but balks at acknowledging the church's responsibility for harboring criminals. He favors cooperation with the civil law but reserves a right to determine whether the laws that implicate offending priests are fair enough to justify that cooperation.

He is, in brief, The Definer who believes moral doctrine need no discussion, let alone from the unordained.

His response to the recent report on the child sex abuse crisis was to endorse it's conclusion that the major factor was not the church but the wild and woolly 60s that led priests astray. Others argue that clericalism itself and the assumptions of clerical privilege were mostly to blame.

The Decider applies absolute truths to politicians and lesbian parents and to victims of abuse. There is nothing whatever wrong with our message or the institution that preaches it: you just need clarification and encouragement to be right…<<

Although many who think highly of the Roman Catholic church will disagree, it seems to me that Chaput’s arrogance and blindness on this occasion are of one piece with his general arrogance in trying to dominate the civil and criminal law as institutions subordinate to his own. It is very consistent with medieval church teaching, and the common thread is, ‘the princes of the church are above the law of any kingdom,’ much less a republic. This persistent trend within the darker upper recesses of the church incline me to agree (again) with Charles Cosimano, except that I believe the utterances of Chaput and Bishop Burke are a paper tiger.

They would like to think they can march millions of voters to the polls in lock step, just as they would like to think that a little matter of giving a priest the benefit of the doubt over pedophilia is perfectly acceptable. But, as the late governor, Lee Sherman Dreyfuss, said to then cardinal Carol Woytyla, “They’re good Catholics, but they think like Protestants.” Thank God for that — and as Paul Blanshard’s legitimate concerns about Catholic power and American democracy recede, I really see no need to castigate my RC neighbors about a faith that seems to bring them closer to God.

Still, when I read “The Church is not about its priests, or its bishops, or its laity, all of whom are highly imperfect sinners,” I wonder a bit: If that be true, then why give your loyalty and obedience to the orders of such imperfect sinners? Would Christ have established obedience to sinners claiming inerrancy as His Church?

Donatism? Who cares? One of the problems with Christianity is that we have gotten all wrapped up in applying labels to our different perceptions of God, and what God expects from us, and then hitting each other over the head with them. Hector cries “Modalism” when I suggest that “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” may not be the essential characteristics of a transcendent deity. Some Protestants cry “Human reasoning” (as an epithet) when anyone tries to say something sensible on a religious matter. I once described myself as an Arian, because I rejected Athanasius, but when I looked up what Arius actually wrote, I tried the Sabellians, and found that equally unsatisfactory. I’m halfway intrigued by Pelagius. The Albigensians sounded good because they thought for themselves, but then, read what they thought, it’s ludicrous.

Rod, whenever I read a story like this about someone I have (heretofore) admired, I think of the Psalm that starts, “Put not your trust in princes, in sons of men, in whom there is no salvation.” Perhaps this is all being allowed to remind us of that.

Re: It’s disappointing, especially because I think Chaput is one of the very best American bishops: courageous, usually correct, and quite articulate. But he has such a blind spot on clericalism.

Given that the sex-abuse scandal caused by clericalism is the biggest crisis facing the Roman Catholic Church today, I have a hard time seeing how someone can be ‘among the very best’ bishops and yet not have the moral courage to call out evil where he sees it.

Given that the sex-abuse scandal caused by clericalism is the biggest crisis facing the Roman Catholic Church today, I have a hard time seeing how someone can be ‘among the very best’ bishops and yet not have the moral courage to call out evil where he sees it.

Really? I mean, I completely agree with you about clericalism and the scandal, but don’t you think it’s possible, at least in theory, for a bishop to be good on a number of other significant issues, but lousy on this one? Granted, it’s a huge one, arguably the biggest one facing the Catholic Church in America today, so I’m not trying to give Chaput a pass on it. My point is simply that his failure here does not obviate his successes in other areas. Pope John Paul was terrible on church governance, including on the abuse scandal, but that is not the only thing we judge his papacy on, or even the main thing. Mind you, Chaput serves in a different context, especially here in Philadelphia, where the local church is reeling from the abuse scandal. He has no bigger task here in this archdiocese than fixing what is broken and shoring up the confidence of the faithful in the wake of this gross institutional failure. This Msgr Lynn shout-out was not a good start, in my view.

Archbishop Chaput: ““If you don’t trust the bishops, why are you still Catholic?”

Well, was it not Saint John Chrysostom – rather than Huss or Wycliffe or Luther or Calvin or Knox – who said: “The floor of hell is paved with bishops’ skulls”? And has not Mr. Dreher himself alluded elsewhere to this quotation? Perhaps the Archbishop should take up the matter with a Higher Patristic Authority.

Abp Chaput has never impressed me as the likely source of reform and revival in the American episcopate; he’s no less careerist than many of his brethren. Very safe and predictable, not surprising in the least.

I would note that we do not possess the exact words that Abp. Chaput said, or even cast iron evidence that he said anything like what the story described him as saying; and that he no doubt had many enemies at that meeting. Unfortunately the story is quite plausible, but it needs to be backed up by more evidence.

Can anyone tell me one positive, beneficial, good, admirable thing that Archbishop Chaput has ever said or done?

I know that if one or more of the bishop’s admirers were to give a substantive answer to that question, I might well disagree; what one person admires may not be admirable to me. Then we would simply know that we have different tastes and principles. But as of now, I am in the dark what anyone finds to admire about the man in the first place.